Veni, Vidi, Scripsi

Daily Archives: January 2, 2014

One of the things I like about doing the predictions post every year is that I try to come up with some random items or take some minor event and run it to its extreme conclusion. Then I start to think about if what I came up with was even possible.

In a very short span of time the idea of buying into a high level character went from a subject of theoretical debate to a reality, with three key companies appearing to opt in on the idea.

With those three offers out there, I figured I would declare 2014 to be the year of such offers, with the floodgates opening and MMOs everywhere racing to match these deals. I even started to make a list of games that I expected to offer insta-levels for cash.

Which ended up being a pretty short list.

The thing is, in my world view, such insta-level offers make sense only in a specific set of circumstances. You have to have an MMO that was popular/successful enough to have sold expansions that raised the level cap so that there is a large mid-level gulf in the player base between the old hands in the latest (and presumably best) content. I would call this the classic EverQuest scenario of MMO success.

However, using that scenario as a measure of success doesn’t leave very many successful MMOs. Listing them out from memory I got:

EverQuest – starts the trend

EverQuest II – assumed the pattern set by EQ

World of Warcraft – refines the EQ pattern, at least in timing

Lord of the Rings Online – sets out on the now established path

Rift – follows WoW in this as in so many things

These are the games that are, in my mind, the norm for MMORPGs. (Who else has had expansions with level cap increases? I am sure I have missed someone there.)

In reality though, that list is not at all the norm for MMOs. Those five represent a very small fraction of the population of MMORPG titles and certainly are not the only successful titles in the history of the genre. Leaving aside the Asian imports and browser games, the list of MMOs that were both successful… a disputed term, I know… and have had no level cap increase is substantial. You can tick off Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron’s Call, Star Wars: Galaxies, City of Heroes,Guild Wars (close enough to an MMO for this discussion) and EVE Online (or does EVE even fit in this picture?) pretty quickly before getting to titles like Vanguard, Age of Conan, or Star Wars: The Old Republic, that probably did not or will not get EverQuest-like expansions because they were not successful enough.

Which is what brought me around to the title of this post. Are level cap increases… especially expansion related increases… an aberration that were just part of the genre in its infancy, but which is unlikely to carry on going forward? Even EverQuest’s direct predecessor, TorilMUD, hasn’t had a level cap increase since launch.

And, as a follow on to that, in a market where the level cap at launch is likely to be the level cap for the lifetime of the game, does the insta-level option have a future? Or do level cap increases enter into that equation when most of your population ends up crowded at the top of the ladder over time no matter what? What is pay for a level boost needed?